


into each life some rain must fall

by fortunatefolly



Category: Holby City
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluffy sex?, I don't even know what to tag this, Lesbian Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 12:53:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8668336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunatefolly/pseuds/fortunatefolly
Summary: Their first time in bed. Set sort of after Kill List.





	

Bernie wraps the coat around her as tightly as she can. England is her home, but her joints complain daily about the weather. It’s not that winter, or rain, didn’t visit Afghanistan. It just never rained as much as it does here in England, the air never as incessantly heavy with moisture.

They’ve only just stepped outside the restaurant. Their fourth date. Well, maybe fifth. She’s not entirely sure whether that first dinner counts as a date. It had been at Serena’s house, and Jason had been there. Most of the dinner was spent fielding questions about relationships.

 _No, Jason, Bernie won’t be moving in with us anytime soon_.

_Of course not, Jason. Just because your auntie and I are dating doesn’t mean she won’t spend time with you. She loves you very much._

_Jason, that’s not an appropriate question to ask._

The dinner had ended with a chaste kiss and a hug.

And tonight’s dinner - romantic Italian food by candlelight, extensive wine list to boot. There had been long quiet looks, flirtatious laughter, caressing of hands, sharing food across the table. Bernie had offered a forkful of pasta, Serena had opened her mouth to accept, her tongue peeking out in the naughtiest way, and Bernie’s heart had forgotten to beat.

All of the signs point towards an evening that won’t end at the restaurant, but what does she know about dating? 25 years with the same man, a short affair with a co-worker. And she doesn’t want to push anything on Serena. Serena waited for her for two months while she ran away to be an idiot. She’ll wait as long as she needs until Serena is absolutely sure. So she pulls the coat around her and offers Serena, who is wrapping a scarf around her neck, a smile.

“Shall I take you home?” she asks, and Serena nods silently.

“Thank you for driving,” she says adds, slipping her hand into Bernie’s as they walk towards her car. Even the hand holding is all too new, unfamiliar. She can’t remember the last time she allowed herself to publicly show affection. Maybe when she and Marcus were dating? And the feeling of Serena’s hands in her own, their fingers interlaced - her heart zips away from her. How will she survive more? “I really did need that glass of Shiraz after the day we had.”

Six hours straight in theater, piecing back together a hiker who had fallen off a cliff.

“Only a glass?” Bernie teases, bumping her shoulder against Serena’s, who giggles, mostly to herself.

The entire car ride is full of touching. Well, mostly Serena’s wandering hands. Bernie focuses most of her mental energy on preventing a full blown crash. She nearly drives them into a pole when Serena drops a hand on her thigh while going on about all of the paperwork she needs to tackle when they go back to work tomorrow.

And it’s not until they’re parked in front of her home that Serena finally grows silent. She looks off at the house, dim lights in the living room.

“I’ll say goodnight then,” Bernie says, reaching across and giving Serena’s hand a squeeze. Does she get a goodnight kiss tonight? The last two dates had ended with them snogging in the car in front of the house. The last time, Jason had knocked on the window, wondering why they were sitting in the car when there was a warm house only a few meters away.

“You know,” Serena says, turning her head slowly towards Bernie, “Jason is away for the night. He doesn’t come back until Sunday.”

“Oh. Right, you did mention that,” Bernie says. She had mentioned it in passing while they were closing up a patient. Bernie had asked about Jason’s absence. Serena had said he was away on some trip for college.

“You could, you know, come inside. For a drink, if you fancy one,” Serena says.

Bernie’s lips spread into a smile before she catches herself, sees it reflected on Serena’s face.

“I suppose I could,” she says.

And that’s how Bernie finds herself pressed against Serena’s front door, being kissed like all hell has broken loose. She cries out when Serena’s lips land on her neck, her tongue dancing circles and setting nerves on fire.

“Serena,” she gasps, holding her hand to the back of her head. “Are you sure?” she manages before she cries out again as those lips turn into teeth.

“I am, if you are,” Serena mumbles against her skin, and that’s enough. Bernie pulls her up by the chin to kiss her, tongues battling as she throws Serena’s scarf somewhere and then shrugs the coat off of her.

“This way,” Serena mumbles as they stumble towards the stairs, her hands anchored in Bernie’s hair.

Climbing the stairs while struggling to undress each other turns into a game of life or death. Serena huffs in frustration and instead takes Bernie’s hand and leads the way up, turning her head every so often, maybe to check that she’s still there, maybe to tease her with sensuous smiles. But they reach the top, turn a corner, and Serena opens a door.

Bernie stands in the doorway, staring into the massive bedroom. She’s been allowed in here once or twice, when she and Serena were still just friends, helping her pick outfits for dinner, not that she had any real advice to offer. She had spent the entire time flirting with her about her various outfits. How long had they been building towards this? And now they’re here with an entirely different purpose. The creeping sense of terror hits her all over again. What if she’s pushing too much? What if Serena doesn’t really want all of this, all of her?

“Are you alright?” she hears, and Bernie looks up, sees Serena watching her, concern and tenderness lining her face.

“Yes, sorry. I’m just, are you sure?” she asks. “It’s a big step. For us, but for you, especially.”

“You need to trust me when I say I know what I want,” Serena says, stepping close and cupping Bernie’s cheek. “I’m not Marcus. And I’m certainly not Alex. Okay?”

Bernie nods and breathes out, chooses once again to step past her fears. Her need for Serena outweighs her fear of being hurt again, knows that she wants her more than her own petrified heart will ever admit.

“Thank you,” she mutters, pulling Serena in for a hug. Holds her like that. “Thank you, for not giving up on me.”

She holds on, tighter than she ever has before. Holding on tight to people always meant heartbreak and loss. Because she would expertly find a way to destroy things before they blew up in her life. But maybe not this time. She had tried to destroy things, but Serena hadn't let her follow through with the destruction.

Bernie turns her head, breathes in deeply as she slowly kisses the skin of her shoulder, then up her neck, savoring each taste of skin under her lips. Serena squirms but not before she brings her arms up, pushes the coat off Bernie’s shoulders. Bernie shrugs her shoulders, trying to free herself, but her arm gets caught in the sleeve. Her arm, which has never gotten caught ever, refuses to budge. And she frustratedly flails her arm around, with the coat still firmly attached to the end of her limb, and Serena finally pulls away and laughs as she reaches for the tangled limb, slowly and gently pulls Bernie’s hand out.

“Thank you,” Bernie mumbles, blushing furiously, and Serena nods, starts to undo the buttons of her blouse. She had chosen to go with a black one. Well, it’s not like she had much choice. She had opened her closet to find that the black blouse was the last piece of clean clothing still hanging on an actual clothes hanger.

Serena follows each opened button with the press of her lips on newly exposed skin, and Bernie gasps when she feels lips right in the valley between her breasts, right above the bra. But Serena doesn’t stop, kisses down her stomach.

“Is this alright?” she asks, her hands resting on the waistline of Bernie’s jeans.

“Yes, yes,” Bernie says, pulling the flowing, cobalt blue blouse off Serena’s shoulders.

“You’ve got such beautiful skin,” Serena says, freeing herself from her blue blouse and throwing it behind her before reaching for the button of Bernie’s jeans, her hands cold against her stomach. Bernie gasps, clenches the muscles of her stomach, feels them tremble in the slightest against the hands warming slowly against her skin. Serena swiftly undoes the button but before she can pull the jeans down, Bernie pulls her back up for a kiss, maneuvers backwards until Serena is tumbling onto the bed. And she follows suit, crawling over her on all fours, her blouse hanging open.

“And you are just beautiful, everywhere,” Bernie says, leaning down to kiss her again. She brings her hands down, grabs the bottom of Serena’s black shirt and tugs. When she throws it behind her shoulder, her mouth falls open at the sight.

“Mind you, I am a few years older now and—” Serena, starts, shifting uncomfortably under her, but Bernie shakes her head.

“Beautiful,” she says, unsurprised by the reverence in her own voice. Even Aphrodite herself would feel inadequate next to this woman, full of life and grace and charm and she hopes, love. She leans down, tastes the skin of her neck with her tongue, traces it down to her collarbone before she kisses down her chest, right at the top of her bra where her breast is round and plump. The skin that had teased her mercilessly for months on end behind those flowing blouses. “Beautiful,” she mumbles against soft skin.

She brings a hand up to the edge of the bra cup and pauses.

“May I?” she asks, looking up, meets brown eyes, and Serena nods enthusiastically. Bernie pulls back the cup, kisses down slowly until her tongue is mouthing the shape of her nipple and Serena groans and throws her head back. Sensitive, she is right here. Bernie smirks and dares to swirl her tongue again, this time, sucking a little and hips squirm underneath her. Definitely sensitive.

She reaches underneath and Serena arches up, allows Bernie to remove the bra. She’s kissing her again, but before she can make sense of what is happening, she is flipped on her back and Serena is perched on top of her, wearing a face so smug that Bernie can’t even be annoyed, lets Serena lean down and kiss her, opening her mouth to taste her, hints of tonight's Shiraz still playing on her tongue.

“Do you mind,” she asks, sitting back up, but tracing the back of her hands up and down Bernie’s half naked torso, “if I go first?”

“First?” Bernie asks.

“Well, I-I-I think it might be best if I did, might help with the nerves,” Serena says. Bernie leans up on her elbows, throws her a smirk.

“Going first can mean two very different things right now,” she says, raising her eyebrows and Serena rolls her eyes. Bernie yanks her down, kisses her until they are both breathless. When Serena pulls away gasping, Bernie gently cups her face with both hands. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, okay?”

Serena nods enthusiastically, and Bernie smiles and throws off her own shirt, undoes her bra and drops them both off the side of bed. Serena is breathing heavily, and if Bernie weren’t doing the exact same thing, she would find herself amused. But then Serena smirks at her, pushes her back and claims a nipple with her lips.

“Oh!” she cries out when Serena bites down with her teeth. She lets her tongue dance down the valley of her breasts, up to the other one, does magic with her mouth. She’s so talented at using her mouth to flirt, to tease, to sass, to kiss. No surprise her lips possess other hidden talents.

“Oh my,” she says again, is too distracted by the mouth against her breast to even notice that Serena is pulling off her jeans. She only realizes when she feels cool air against the skin of her thighs.

Serena throws them over her shoulder, runs her hands slowly up her legs, up the inside of her thighs, ever so slowly, the skin of her hands both so rough and so soft. A surgeon’s gifted hands.

She leans down and presses a kiss to her navel, licking around before she tugs at the underwear and Bernie’s hips fly up, lets Serena pull them off.

“Are you sure there wasn’t a girl in Stratford? Stepford?” Bernie manages when Serena’s hands trace teasing circles around the inside of her thighs. Her legs are already trembling from the tension.

“Stepney. No,” Serena says. “Why?”

“I’m having a hard time believing you’ve never done this before,” Bernie gasps when she feels a hand cover her center.

“Well, the imagination is a wondrous thing,” Serena says, running a finger down her slit and Bernie bites down on a finger. “But I have done my homework,” she adds.

“Homework?” Bernie gasps when finger circles her opening, languidly drawing shapes.

“I am a scientist after all. I believe in methodical research,” Serena says. “The world wide web is filled with plenty of helpful information.”

And fuck that is hot. The thought of Serena sitting with a glass of wine, looking up lesbian sex on the Internet while thinking about Bernie, her center clutches involuntarily with a new gush of wetness. She leans up on her elbows to find Serena smirking up at her.

Every time Bernie went out into the field, she did so knowing that she may not be returning back home, that she could be leaving behind two children and a husband. Somehow this doesn’t feel any different, standing on the cusp of something dangerous - she’s got so much emotion and adrenaline coursing through her. In the field, emotions got you killed. But here, she forces her brain to relax, to try not to block out the chaos storming inside her, channels it into their building connection.

“Please come up here,” Bernie says.

She’s never one to ask for things in bed, but she feels safe, feels brave enough. And Serena does come up, settles herself on top of Bernie and kisses her softly, gently, as she slowly enters her with a finger. She clenches tightly around the finger, then loosens and lets Serena explore. Serena Campbell is finally fucking her and god if that thought isn’t enough to make her come right now.

But then Serena pulls out and enters her again with two fingers and Bernie throws her head back and moans.

“That’s good then?” she asks, and Bernie nods as Serena starts to build a slow rhythm, in and out, in and out.

Bernie grabs her by the neck, pulls her close and kisses her as Serena fucks her, long and slow. And she’s starting to feel that tight coil build inside of her, little by little, but it’s just not enough.

“Serena,” she gasps, as her hips thrust down to meet every pump of her fingers. “Can you,” she asks, silently, guiding Serena’s other hand to her clit.

“Ahh, of course,” she says, rubbing circles as her fingers pump, and that hot heat coiled right in her center starts to spread, like flash of electricity shooting throughout her body. And then Serena hits the right spot, and Bernie cries out. Serena does it again and again until Bernie is thrashing her head against the pillow and coming and coming, her hands clutching so tightly at the sheets she knows they’re going to be sore tomorrow. And Serena doesn’t stop until Bernie has nothing left in her, until she stills.

She lies there, gasping and panting for air, her brain spent, lost in a cloudy haze of pleasure.

“Was that, was that alright?” Serena asks.

A body collapses next to her, and Bernie closes her eyes at the feeling of Serena’s bare skin pressed against her own.

“Great,” Bernie says, turning her body and kissing her, though she’s still panting and it’s not quite kissing as much as breathing harshly against her lips. She throws a leg over Serena’s hip, pulls her close and Serena kisses her neck, her shoulder, her cheeks, her lips, as she cools down.

When she finally catches her breath, she opens her eyes to really look at Serena, and her heart sings at the sight. Serena Campbell is looking at her like she is someone who is worthy of love and it creates a paradox of worry and calm that she has only ever really felt while in theater.

Alex had been a hurricane, a merciless storm with winds and lightening and thunder, and she had pounded her way through Bernie’s life, leaving nothing but chaos in her wake. Bernie had fallen love in a flash, fully conscious of what was happening to her.

But Serena, Serena had been soft, cool mist. Rain so gentle it didn’t even feel like rain. And it had been a build up so slow she didn’t even realize her entire house had been flooded until she was waist deep in rainwater, irretrievably in love with her.

She leans forward and presses her lips against Serena’s, tastes the Shiraz again, smiles as she rolls on top of her and continues to kiss her, languidly, like they have all night to do this. They do have all night to do this. She lets her hands wander, but frowns when she realizes Serena still has her trousers on.

She kisses down her neck, down her breasts, down her quivering stomach, then undoes her trousers and throws them over her shoulder. She’s wearing a matching set tonight – dark, burgundy lace.

Bernie looks up at her in surprise and delight, the lace of her underwear stitched to tease with the most tantalizing views.

“You were prepared for tonight,” Bernie says, tracing the outline of the lace with her fingers. She starts to chuckle, but whimpers when Bernie slips her finger inside, runs it under the elastic, along the indentations of her skin.

“Well, you know me. Always prepared,” she manages.

Bernie places both hands inside the edges of the lace, traces them around the pale delicate skin until Serena is gasping, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath. She then brings a hand around to the center, lowers her fingers even further until they hit dark, curly hair, scratches her fingers along the top, and Serena jerks her head back and moans.

She needs no more confirmation. She pulls the underwear off, throws it behind her. Grabs an ankle in her hand, kisses it, then the inside of her knee, then uses her tongue to trace a wet long line up the inside of her thigh and Serena brings a hand up to her face.

“I want to taste you, if that’s alright,” Bernie whispers, spreading Serena’s legs open and making a space for herself.

“Yes,” Serena gasps, breathless as Bernie traces the inside of her thighs with the back of her hands. “Whatever you fancy.”

“Well, I fancy you,” Bernie says, dropping her head and kissing her center and Serena keens.

It’s been a while since she’s done this, been able to do so under such luxurious circumstances. With Alex, they had spent most of their affair trying to get in as many quick fucks as possible, doing their best not to get caught. So she takes her time, exploring and tasting. For so long, she's thought about this. After their first kiss, every time Serena would offer her a smile, every time their hands would accidentally brush. It had become unbearably tortuous near the end. 

Serena eventually drops a hand to her hair, holds tight as Bernie licks circles around her clit. And then she is arching her entire back and her hips are bucking but damn it if Bernie is going to let Serena throw her off. She sucks and teases with her tongue, grabs a breast and pulls on the nipple in tandem with her tongue until Serena is coming and coming, her scream piercing the silence of the room, Bernie only moves her mouth away when her hips finally land back on the mattress.

She wipes her chin, her mouth, her nose with the back of her hand, kisses up slowly, taking the scenic route back up towards her face as Serena gasps for air.

“You may be one of the best trauma surgeons in the country,” she finally says when Bernie hovers over her on all fours. “But that, you should get a medal of honor for that skill.”

She chuckles and leans down to kiss her, and Serena pulls her closer, tastes herself on Bernie and doesn’t stop kissing her until they are both breathless. Serena just tugs her until she falls on top of her, their sweat-slick bodies pressed together from head to toe.

There is not a single fantasy, and she conjured up an endless stream of them while in Kiev, that could have ever done justice. She had spent two months being lonely and miserable, which had been unfamiliar.

Bernie has spent a lot of her life being alone. She’s good at that. Even her marriage had never been a true partnership, had felt more contractual. Hell, if she needed, she could probably do alone it for the rest of her life. But she hadn’t understood what it meant to be lonely until she found herself alone with a Serena shaped hole in her heart.

“Serena,” Bernie mumbles into the skin of her neck, where she has been breathing in her scent.

“Hmm?” she asks, her hand tracing mindless shapes on Bernie’s back.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?” Serena asks.

“For tonight, for giving me another chance,” she says.

She feels Serena shift underneath her, the hand on her back growing still.

“Before you left for Kiev, you said I should figure out what I want,” she says, wrapping her arms around Bernie and holding her close. “I did figure it out. But what about you?”

She hears masterfully masked trepidation behind those words, knows she is responsible for that, knows it will take time before those wounds will be fully healed.

“It’s always been you,” Bernie says. “I was a stupid coward. I said I didn’t want to be alone. But the truth is, I _can_ do being alone. I'm quite good at it, actually. I came back because I want to be with you.”

She nuzzles the skin of Serena’s neck, places a kiss there.

“Okay,” Serena says, presses her lips to the top of her head.

“I’m not very good at this. I’ve never been,” she says, pushing herself up to look down at Serena. “But I want to try with you.” Her loving heart, her beauty, her grace, her charm. Bernie wants all of it, wants to spend her days loving her, worshipping her, working with her.

Serena lifts a hand, cups her cheek.

“Good,” she says, matter of factly, as though they've concluded a productive board meeting, and Bernie laughs and shakes her head.

“Just be a little patient with me,” Bernie says.

“As long as you don’t bugger off again,” Serena says.

“I promise,” Bernie leans down, kisses her.

For now, that's all she can promise, and she intends to keep that promise if it kills her.


End file.
